OPPORTUNISTS …How Politicians use BOKO-HARAM as CAMPAIGN Strategy

Whether insurgency, insecurity, Boko-Haram, this thematic concern has been the highlight of presidential campaigns since Jonathan. In the tenure of former President of Nigeria, Good-luck Ebele Jonathan as president of Nigeria, Boko-Haram became a major concern in Nigeria. It was in fact alleged that the United States of America, under the then presidency of Barrack Obama supported the Buhari campaign for her fear that Nigeria will be torn apart and there will be massive migrants into the US. However true or untrue this may be, it is undeniable, that the rise in insecurity in Nigeria has always been on the high rise. Although strategies, reasons and anarchical structure of these groups change, and are modified, they remain brewing threats to the country. So, whether Boko-Haram under Jonathan or Fulani Herdsmen under Buhari, all can be surnamed insecurity.

Abubakar Atiku, a presidential aspirant via the platform of the People’s Democracy Party (PDP), in Maiduguri on July 17, 2018, ahead of the PDP presidential primaries made a few things known. Perhaps, classifying all under the Boko-Haram work frame, presidential aspirant, Abubakar Atiku has vowed to deal with the problem of Boko-Haram in Nigeria if elected as president. He added that he will do this within a very short time of after he has been sworn in. This kind of short-timed promise is no longer new to the Nigerian ear. You may want to ask why we should believe this one as well. At Least, cutting through even the economic sphere, promises to stabilize naira as against the US dollars has been made. Promises to deal with the same Boko-Haram has also been made, just to have a supplement of Fulani Herdsmen thereafter.

So, promises upon promises, does Atiku expect Nigerians to gulp his down also? He goes farther to promise the tribally segmented Nigeria to unite it within this short time frame (the length which is known to Atiku alone). All of these, of course does not come without throwing an antagonistic blow at the current administration, run by a president of the opposite political party (APC). Should he have been in Buhari’s shoes, Atiku claims that by now, he would have SACKED all service chiefs for their failed to deal with insurgency in Nigeria for the past three years. This he does, also pointing out his dissatisfaction with current president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, in his handling of insurgency in the country.

What is Atiku up to? Does he have plans of inflating our weary minds with tricky promises? Does he expect us to dance to his tune as he entices Nigerians with the point he knows they are most in need? It will be unfair to think that he knows he bluffs, yet he ridicules the Nigerian appetite for safety with fanciful promises. That will be tragic. In in his woo to the North-East state, he promises to prioritize them in the matters of security if they showed their support to him.

In making a saint of himself, Atiku takes these North-East states to the 1999 politically jolly times when he was Vice-President. He reminds them, that although they were under the leadership of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), they enjoyed a lush of executive treatment and protection, even far better than some PDP states. According to him this was owing to the fact, that ‘One of theirs was in power’. Although this serves as a bias-ridden and undemocratic statement from the man who promises to bring to unity the whole Nigeria, what can we do?

‘Mr. Restructure’ as Atiku agrees to being called also promises to bring into play his quality of experience in the Private sector into the Nigerian failing economic situation, also making sure that joblessness will be a thing of the past.

Mr. Restructure, more than magic maker has set high the hopes of Nigerians at all ends, not just insecurity.